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  • Item
    ‘Explicit vs. Implicit Pronunciation Teaching to Greek children: the case of the acquisition of English vowels’
    (. Selected papers from the 19th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 2011) Papachristou Vicky
    The paper discusses the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching of English to Greek state school students aged 16 years old. More specifically, it examines the production of English vowels by Greek learners of English in an English Foreign Language (EFL) context. Two different teaching methods were implemented, which resulted in having two different experimental groups; an explicit vs. an implicit one. The former received explicit teaching of English pronunciation through a variety of activities while the latter was taught implicitly via the use of recasts. The results showed that Greek students of both experimental groups experienced difficulties in producing the target vowels. As regards vowel quantity (duration), it was found that the implicit and control groups produced some target vowel values which were consistent with those of native speakers. Keywords: explicit – implicit pronunciation teaching, vowel production, vowel duration, second language learning
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    Five-star hotels of a multinational enterprise in countries of the transitional periphery: A case study in human resource management
    (Elsevier, 2015-12) Serafini, G. O. ; Szamosi, L. T.
    The paper examines the application of human resource management (HRM) practices by a Multinational Enterprise (MNE) whose operations extend from unexplored post-Soviet countries’ transitional periphery economies to advanced economies. By involving hotels of a global luxury US chain in Azerbaijan (Caucasus) and Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia), this in-depth case study focuses on the labour-intensive hospitality industry which, although being relatively neglected by mainstream research, is among the first movers in new markets through the setting of business infrastructure and then leisure tourism. Through Whitley's dimensions of employer–employee interdependence and employee delegation, comparisons highlighted few differences between properties operating in the particular transitional periphery economies and those in a developed country (Germany) owned by the same chain. On the basis of corroboration obtained through a multiple case study methodology, dissimilarities identified were in terms of the flexibility of employment, outsourcing and dismissal procedures; however, despite socio-economic differences across nations, it is argued that luxury hospitality MNEs are able to maintain an overall uniform implementation of HRM policies and practices regardless of locale through a “geocentric” approach as illustrated by Perlmutter (1969) in his seminal work.
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    A Novel Permission Hierarchy for RBAC for Dealing with SoD in MAC Models
    (Oxford Academic, 2016-04) Veloudis, Simeon ; Nissanke, Nimal
    Separation of duty (SoD) is a fundamental principle of computer security that has not been addressed sufficiently in multi-level security (MLS) mandatory access control (MAC) models, as realized through the adoption of the Bell-LaPadula (BLP) model. This is due to the lack of means at present to express SoD constraints in MAC. The primary objective of this paper is to overcome this but within a framework that allows for rigour and linguistic features to express SoD constraints, while retaining the core security properties of BLP, namely the Simple Security Property and ★-Property. To this end, we propose a formal framework which bridges the BLP model with the more general hierarchical role-based access control (RBAC) model. Our framework is based on a hierarchy of permissions that is founded on a novel concept of permission capacity, determined on the basis of the security levels that characterize objects in MLS models. Such a hierarchy naturally provides a solid basis for defining role seniority and deriving a hierarchical ordering on roles within MLS models. SoD constraints are expressed by means of conflicting permissions that give rise to mutually exclusive roles.
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    Context-aware Security Models for PaaS-enabled Access Control
    ( 2016-04) Veloudis, Simeon ; Verginadis, Yannis ; Pationiotakis, Ioannis ; Paraskakis, Iraklis ; Mentzas, Grigoris
    Enterprises are embracing cloud computing in order to reduce costs and increase agility in their everyday business operations. Nevertheless, due mainly to confidentiality, privacy and integrity concerns, many are still reluctant to migrate their sensitive data to the cloud. In this paper, firstly, we outline the construction of a suitable Context-aware Security Model, for enhancing security in cloud applications. Secondly, we outline the construction of an extensible and declarative formalism for representing policy-related knowledge, one which disentangles the definition of a policy from the code employed for enforcing it. Both of them will be employed for supporting innovative PaaS-enabled access control mechanisms.
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    Message framing and acceptance of branchless banking technology
    (Elsevier, 2016-05) Jonila Kurila ; Lambros Lazuras ; Panagiotis H. Ketikidis
    Mobile communication technologies are ubiquitous and span a wide range of applications. The present study assessed the effects of message framing on the public acceptance of branchless banking applications using the unified theory of acceptance and utilization of technology (UTAUT). Adult holders of an active bank account were randomly assigned into three message framing conditions (gain frame, loss frame, and control condition), and completed structured anonymous questionnaires on technology acceptance variables derived from the UTAUT. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that message framing manipulations did not influence directly self-reported scores on technology acceptance variables. However, linear regression analyses showed that message framing differentiated the interrelationships between usage intentions and related UTAUT variables between conditions. Moderated regression analysis further showed that gender interacted with performance expectancy in predicting usage intentions in the control group condition. Message framing manipulations influence the way intentions to use technology relate to technology acceptance beliefs. This effect should be further examined in the context of technology acceptance models in e-commerce applications, and more especially in the branchless banking domain. Efforts to promote branchless banking applications would benefit from assessments of potential users’ technology acceptance beliefs and intentions.
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    An investigation of social entrepreneurial intentions formation among South-East European postgraduate students
    (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2016-11-21) Kostas Politis ; Panayiotis Ketikidis ; Anastasios D. Diamantidis ; Lambros Lazuras
    Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of social entrepreneurial intentions (SEIs) in postgraduate students in the South-East European region. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative approach (self-administered online questionnaire) is used to gather data. The total number of the questionnaires that were collected and analyzed through SPSS statistical suite was 115 from which 111 were valid. Findings – From the proposed five hypotheses set in the literature, only the personality trait theory was totally rejected because it failed to predict social and commercial entrepreneurial intentions (EIs). The remaining hypotheses were found to be valid. The study’s key finding is that the chosen theory (Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB)), is able to predict both kinds of intentions. An alarming key finding is that tensions in mission focus seem to be present in the early shaped intentions of potential social entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications – Research findings impose that major educational and policy efforts are needed to promote the theme of social entrepreneurship (SE). The results indicate that most of the postgraduates have not yet fully understood the mindset of SE as they were confused about the synergy of the goals (inherent in their social vs profit intentions). Originality/value – This research contributes in three major ways to the literature. First, it shows that SEIs seem to be shaped similarly to EIs; determined mostly by two of the motivational factors of the TPB (personal attitude and perceived behavioral control). Second, it shows which factors seem to affect both constructs and third, it adds to the literature by showing that tensions in mission focus are evident early on in the intentions’ formation process, underlying the necessity of immediate educational and legislative precautions.
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    Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Agents and Robotics in a Computer Science Curriculum
    (Springer International Publishing, 2017) Ioanna Stamatopoulou ; Konstantinos Dimopoulos ; Petros Kefalas
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    Institutional Co-Creation Interfaces for Innovation Diffusion during Disaster Management
    (ResearchGate, 2017-03-01) Adrian SOLOMON ; Panagiotis KETIKIDIS ; Felicia SIAVALAS
    This paper discusses the concept of Resilient and Green Supply Chain Management (RGSCM) implementation in South Eastern Europe (SEE) from the point of view of understanding the structure of the inter-organizational (institutional) interfaces involved in this process as well as how are these interfaces evolving and transforming over time. As social and environmental concerns are growing in importance through normative and coercive directions, all the regional actors (triple/quadruple/quintuple helix) that supply chains interact with need to bridge their inter-organizational interfaces to properly ensure co-creation at the entire stakeholder level towards increasing the chances of a homogenous implementation of RGSCM. In this context, this paper adopts a three-stage mixed methodology of interviews, survey, focus groups, modelling and simulation case studies. The results show that the key pillars of inter-organizational interface integration and evolution reside in the proper identification of the key goals (performance indicators) of the involved institutions, which will maintain market-optimized competition levels. Then, institutions will steadily adhere to the market trends as explained by the ST and INT and in the process of adopting the RGSCM eco-innovation (DIT), the new entrant institutions will transform their inter-organizational interface to properly bridge with the core market stakeholder group. Finally, the key driver of interface alteration resides in the ability of disruptive (eco) innovators to set new standards. This research has core academic implications by extending the INT, DIT and ST under the context of RGSCM, policy implications in terms of proper policy making to support the required co-creation as well as practical implications by helping organizations to manage their inter-organizational interfaces.
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    An Ontological Template for Context Expressions in Attribute-Based Access Control Policies
    ( 2017-04) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos ; Verginadis, Yannis ; Pationiotakis, Ioannis ; Mentzas, Grigoris
    By taking up the cloud computing paradigm enterprises are able to realise significant cost savings whilst increasing their agility and productivity. However, due to security concerns, many enterprises are reluctant to migrate their critical data and operations to the cloud. One way to alleviate these concerns is to devise suitable policies that infuse adequate access controls into cloud services. However, the dynamicity inherent in cloud environments, coupled with the heterogeneous nature of cloud services, hinders the formulation of effective and interoperable access control policies that are suitable for the underlying domain of application. To this end, this work proposes an ontological template for the semantic representation of context expressions in access control policies. This template is underpinned by a suitable set of interrelated concepts that generically capture a wide range of contextual knowledge that must be considered during the evaluation of policies.
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    Ontological Templates for Regulating Access to Sensitive Medical Data in the Cloud
    ( 2017-06) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, Iraklis ; Verginadis, Yannis ; Pationiotakis, Ioannis ; Mentzas, Grigoris
    By embracing the cloud computing paradigm for storing and processing electronic medical records (EMRs), modern healthcare providers are able to realise significant cost savings. However, relinquishing control of sensitive medical data by delegating their storage and processing to third-party cloud providers naturally raises significant security concerns. One way to alleviate these concerns is to devise appropriate policies that infuse adequate access controls in cloud services. Nevertheless, the heterogeneous nature of these services, coupled with the dynamicity inherent in cloud environments, hinder the formulation of effective and interoperable policies that are appropriate for the underlying domain of application. To this end, this work adopts the ontological templates proposed in [5] for the representation of access control policies in the medical sector. By capturing the knowledge that must be infused into an access control policy, these templates sufficiently address the needs of the underlying domain of application in which such a policy is to be enforced; at the same time, they facilitate developers in infusing adequate access controls to their cloud applications.
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    Policy Management and Enforcement Using OWL and SWRL for the Internet of Things
    ( 2017-09) Dautov, Rustem ; Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, Iraklis
    As the number of connected devices is exponentially grow- ing, the IoT community is investigating potential ways of overcoming the resulting heterogeneity to enable device compatibility, interoperabil- ity and integration. The Semantic Web technologies, frequently used to address these issues, have been employed to develop a number of ontolog- ical frameworks, aiming to provide a common vocabulary of terms for the IoT domain. Defined in Web Ontology Language – a language based on the Description Logics, and thus equipped with the ‘off-the-shelf’ sup- port for formal reasoning – these ontologies, however, seem to neglect the built-in automated reasoning capabilities. Accordingly, this paper discusses the possibility of leveraging this idle potential for automated analysis in the context of defining and enforcing policies for the IoT. As a first step towards a proof of concept, the paper focuses on a simple use case and, using the existing IoT-Lite ontology, demonstrates different types of semantic classification to enable policy enforcement. As a result, it becomes possible to detect a critical situation, when a dangerous tem- perature threshold has been exceeded. With the proposed approach, IoT practitioners are offered an already existing, reliable and optimised pol- icy enforcement mechanism. Moreover, they are also expected to benefit from support for policy governance, separation of concerns, a declarative approach to knowledge engineering, and an extensible architecture.
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    Ontological Definition of Governance Framework for Security Policies in Cloud Environments
    ( 2017-09) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos
    The cloud computing paradigm enables enterprises to realise sig- nificant cost savings whilst boosting their agility and productivity. However, security and privacy concerns generally deter enterprises from migrating their critical data to the cloud. One way to alleviate these concerns, hence bolster the adoption of cloud computing, is to devise adequate security policies that control the manner in which these data are stored and accessed in the cloud. Nevertheless, for enterprises to entrust these policies, a framework capable of providing assurances about their correctness is required. This work proposes such a framework. In particular, it proposes an approach that enables enterprises to define their own view of what consti- tutes a correct policy through the formulation of an appropriate set of well-formedness constraints. These constraints are expressed ontologically thus enabling—by virtue of semantic inferencing— automated reasoning about their satisfaction by the policies
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    Foundations for Designing, Defining, Validating and Executing Access Control Policies in Cloud Environments
    ( 2017-09) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos
    By embracing cloud computing enterprises are able to boost their agility and productivity whilst realising significant cost savings. However, due to security and privacy concerns, many enterprises are reluctant to migrate their data and operations to the cloud. One way to alleviate these concerns is to devise access control policies that infuse suitable security controls into cloud services. Nevertheless, the complexity inherent in such policies, stemming from the dynamic nature of cloud environments, calls for a framework that provides assurances with respect to the effectiveness of the policies. In this respect, this work proposes a class of constraints, the so-called well-formedness constraints, that provide such assurances by empowering stakeholders to harness the attributes of the policies. Both the policies and the constraints are expressed ontologically hence enabling automated reasoning about the abidance of the policies with the constraints.
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    Ontological Framework for Ensuring Correctness of Security Policies in Cloud Environments
    ( 2017-09) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos
    By embracing the cloud computing paradigm enterprises are able to boost their agility and productivity whilst realising significant cost savings. However, many enterprises are reluctant to adopt cloud services for supporting their critical operations due to security and privacy concerns. One way to alleviate these concerns is to devise policies that infuse suitable security controls in cloud services. This work proposes a class of ontologically-expressed rules, namely the so-called axiomatic rules, that aim at ensuring the correctness of these policies by harnessing the various knowledge artefacts that they embody. It also articulates an adequate framework for the expression of policies, one which provides ontological templates for modelling the knowledge artefacts encoded in the policies and which form the basis for the proposed axiomatic rules.
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    Cloud service brokerage: enhancing resilience in virtual enterprises through service governance and quality assurance
    ( 2017-12) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos
    We argue that cloud service brokerage (CSB) mechanisms can strengthen the resilience of services in cloud-based VEs. In this respect, we present the Service Completeness-Compliance Checker (SC$$^3$$3), a mechanism which offers capabilities with respect to the quality assurance dimension of CSB. More specifically, the SC$$^3$$3 strengthens the resilience of cloud services by evaluating their conformance with pre-specified policies concerning the business aspects of their delivery, as well as by managing the evolution of their lifecycle in a controlled and policy-based manner. By relying on an ontology-based representation of policies and services, the SC$$^3$$3 achieves a proper separation of concerns between policy definition and policy enforcement. This effectively enables the SC$$^3$$3 to operate in a manner generic and agnostic to any underlying cloud delivery platform, as well as to reason about the well-formedness of the pre-specified policies.
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    An Ontological Framework for Determining the Repercussions of Retirement Actions Targeted at Complex Access Control Policies in Cloud Environments
    ( 2017-12) Veloudis, Simeon ; Paraskakis, I. ; Petsos, Christos
    Veloudis S., Paraskakis I., Petsos C., (2017). An Ontological Framework for Determining the Repercussions of Retirement Actions Targeted at Complex Access Control Policies in Cloud Environments, Proceedings of the10th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC) pp 21-28, Austin, Texas, USA — December 05 - 08, 2017
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    The Application of MNC HR policies and practices in the luxury hotel industry: Differences and similarities between transitional periphery versus developed economies
    (Edward Elgar, 2018) Serafini, G. O. ; Leslie T. Szamosi
    With a growing body of literature dealing with business and management issues in the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the study of the ‘transitional periphery’, or post-Soviet economies, is sparse. A combination of rich natural resources and strategic locations make these economies of significant importance. This book provides fresh and recent research on both firms and the business environment in this region. It serves as a key reference work for those interested in comparative capitalism, business and society in the post state socialist world. - - - An original and insightful book, this work focuses on domestic and overseas firms operating in those Central Asian and Eastern European countries considered to be the transitional economic periphery. Chapters shed light on their distinct forms of capitalism, and how it influences and adapts the firms located there. The eminent authors show how, in a post-state socialist world, there are several implications for both domestic and overseas firms functioning successfully in the transitional periphery. With the complex mix of political and market mediation and informal personal ties, chapters explore the delicate balance of liberalisation in transitional economies. Detailed examples from specific countries in Eurasia and Central Asia such as Belarus, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia are discussed alongside broader thematic issues of economic and social change, labour relations and human resource management. Most importantly, it is shown that liberalisation has little connection to short-term business growth. To succeed in such contexts, international firms need to be both pragmatic and creative in coping with malleable yet durable forms of institutional mediation. Providing a unique perspective on the transitional economic periphery and much-needed insights from international business, this book is essential reading for researchers and graduate students studying transitional economies, non-traditional business models, institutional persistence and change, political and economic development and management in economically transitioning countries.
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    Human resource management: A critical approach.
    (Routledge, 2018) Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T., & Szamosi, L. T.
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    Remittances and FDI Effects on Economic Growth: A VECM and GIRFs for the Case of Albania
    (Taylor and Francis, 2018-01-18) Petros Golitsis ; Kushtrim Avdiu ; Leslie T. Szamosi
    This paper analyzes the effects of remittances and foreign direct investments (FDI) on economic growth, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), and inflation in Albania through a vector error correction model. The results show that remittances Granger-cause positively economic growth short- and long-run and negatively inflation, while no significant relationship has been established between remittances and GFCF. The findings support that remittances, apart from affecting economic growth, disinflate the Albanian economy. With respect to FDI, there are signs that inflation Granger-causes negatively FDI, while there appears to be no relationship between FDI, economic growth, and capital formation.
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    Continuity and Change in Greek Politics in an Age of Austerity
    (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018-02-20) Prodromidou Alexandra
    This chapter discusses the impact of austerity policies on Greek politics and attempts to identify patterns of continuity and change in the post-1974 era. The first part maps the evolution of politics in Greece, with a focus on the development of the clientelistic state, which shaped state policies largely based on political cost. The second part discusses the changes occurring post-2010, including the decline of the socialist PASOK in favour of the rise of fringe populist parties. It is argued that the political and social turmoil created by the austerity measures adopted have been conditioned by the already existing particular brand of populist and clientelistic governance, which stood at the core of the country’s party political system at least since the 1980s.